Anachronist

Yeah, either a line over or a tension knot, hard to say 100%. See the attached photo, looks like a knot but that could be be caused from a line over, looks like the outer C&D are both being pulled toward the knot though and all A&B look clear by the end. Get a better GoPro and it will make it easier to tell next time https://www.dropbox.com/s/xcv7b3jxpkv56yr/Screen%20Shot%202015-12-20%20at%203.47.54%20PM.png?dl=0 "pic" Uggg, how do you make just a word clicky like "pic" for instance?

Any 7-cell of the same size. Specter, Storm, etc 9-cells of the same size - Pilot ZPX, Fluid Prime. Most 9-cells a size smaller. All manufacturers of containers have fit charts on their website that will tell you how different canopies will pack. e.g. http://www.performancedesigns.com/packingchart.aspx http://www.unitedparachutetechnologies.com/PDF/CHART_00037___Rig_Sizing_Chart.pdf https://www.miragesys.com/sizing-guide/ http://www.sunpath.com/canopysizing.php

I have no knowledge of the CSPA. My point is the glaring discrepancy between what is considered the minimum experience required for certain privileges (quantified by jump number, which is flawed but the only real way to do it without increasing the complexity significantly). The current USPA coach rating is irrelevant. The idea that with 100 jumps and a day of lecture you are trusted to participate in student instruction on the ground, in freefall, and give advice on safety but have half the experience required to jump with a GoPro without endangering yourself or others is a bit off. Maybe I'm just being silly, but that don't jive. I would suggest the jump requirements for all licenses and ratings at least be doubled. As for a rating to teach people to teach before becoming an AFFI or for "assistants" to AFFIs, you could have something like the coach rating but the requirements should be more along the lines of a 200 jump minimum, completion of Flight1 101-103 or the equivalent, and more than one day of lecture and two checkout jumps. But again, cost is a limiting factor as well as instructors to teach all of this material. Just my two cents. (Also worth mentioning is the lack of general rigging knowledge among fun jumpers and coaches. I couldn't even conceive all of the things I didn't know that I should have, before having the good fortune to be taken under the wing of some rather experienced folks. More than once I was confronted with a "you really shouldn't have done that" which was the beginning of my realizing how little I understood, even after a coach course and a couple hundred jumps. Rigging should be a fundamental part of every license and rating much more than it is now.)

Yeah, the USPA coach rating is a joke, and if you ask me a liability. It should be completely eliminated. Maybe back in the round days 100 jumps meant you had some idea what was going on but today it isn't even good enough to be trusted with a GoPro, but hey you can teach other folks how to do this stuff that might kill them. 100 jumps is closer to basic minimal competency. I did sit through a USPA coach course taught by Bram at Skydive Ratings and my impression throughout the whole time was "omg, I can't believe how incredibly useless this is." We even had to stop and explain to one of the new "coaches" what a down-plane was, they were under the impression that down-plane was synonymous with two-out and were unaware that a down-plane configuration could exist.

Yes, yes they were, student fatalities have dropped drastically over the last 30 years. The fact that you even want to use deaths as a variable illustrates how rudimentary the training is, when "not dying" is the standard of "doing a good job" or "success," the standards are then as low as they could possibly be.

I'm convinced you guys are retarded and illiterate. I never said 1 on 1 was bad, only that it is expensive. One on one is great (and necessary for freefall). And yes, a lot of SCUBA instructors suck and are undertrained, thanks PADI. Not to say there aren't excellent PADI instructors, but that is where most of the crappy ones come from. As for my skydiving I refuse to teach or pursue an instructional rating because I don't want it to become work (like what happened with SCUBA), and I can afford to jump without it, I also don't have any interest. I have been throughly exposed to the USPA's teaching methods, read the instructor manuals, and have lots of friends who are AFFIs and TIs. I've personally observed dozens of AFF instructions and ground schools. It is sufficient to see the overall level of expertise. Yes, there are phenomenal skydiving instructors (I had two of them for my AFF), and there are bad ones, and everything in between. I'm not saying skydiving instruction is "bad" just rudimentary compared to a sport that I am intimately familiar with. I would say however I think there is an overall feeling in the skydiving community that canopy training is severely lacking in the USPA course material. (Not to mention the whole night jump D license debate.) Anecdotes are pointless, we're not trying to tally f**k-ups, I can give plenty from both sports. I'm talking about methods and philosophy. Due to the expense of skydiving it would be impractical to expect the things I mentioned (and also mentioned it would be impractical). The consequences of f**k-ups are also much greater, which would imply the training has to be even more thorough than SCUBA to achieve the same "level of competence." So teaching skydiving is an uphill battle. So put a tampon in and pretend I'm not a retard and you might just learn something or better appreciate the difficulty involved in teaching skydiving, logistically and financially.

Oh yes, your singular experience is so compelling compared to the hundreds of students and dozens of instructors I taught. Please tell me more about how the world works based on your singular experiences.

Obelixtim brings up a good point, given the time and investment commitments considered "adequate" for any training program, the material has to be presented in a way that accommodates all qualified students. If you want to increase the investments or make qualifying as a student more rigorous then you can increase the rigor of the training program. But given the current USPA standards and expectations for students, hook knives fall pretty well outside of the necessary regime, there are simply higher priorities given the limitations of the program. If a training program is flexible enough to allow higher performing students to acquire additional training and information, that is great. Coming from SCUBA as an instructor trainer, NAUI and MSDT, PADI; I can safely say that skydiving training is in its infancy (at best adolescence). SCUBA also went through a period of much higher standards/requirements but those requirements were deemed unnecessary/excessive for virtually all students. With some programs though, high-functioning students are able to get a lot more out of their training than is "normal" or expected. The monetary investment is also considerably smaller which allows for more training without significant cost. Depending on the agency, the standard "mastery of one's craft" is also much higher for instructors than in skydiving. But the knowledge is less diverse and arguably less complicated than what skydiving requires. To bring skydiving up to the "quality" or thoroughness of SCUBA for both students and instructors, the investment of time and money would have to be significantly higher than it is now, at least in the US. The other limiting factor for cost is the instructor to student ratio, in the sky it is very small, one on one or two instructors to one student (i.e. expensive). For the sake of examples, if you asked me to bring AFF up to SCUBA "quality" it would consist of several tandems focused on altitude awareness and canopy patterns with active student participation as well as tunnel time and every student would have to be a competent packer and have basic rigging skills before making a jump with their own rig. They would also have to thoroughly understand aircraft procedures and exit orders. All of that before AFF lvl 1. But this would add thousands to the cost and scores of hours to ground school. But damn, it would make some fine students. You could even throw hook knife training in there As nice as that would be, I think most jumpers (including myself) would find it excessive/impractical, and it would reduce the number of students to extremely low levels due to cost alone.

Ugggghhhhh, aerodynamics aren't as pretty as we'd like to think they are and the actual mechanism of a lot of forces is not truly known, but with lots of trial and error and tons of money there is a collective of "stuff that works" but it doesn't mean that it is accurate at all times or that basic tenets are absolute. Aerodynamic surprises abound as our understanding changes, you can't just plug data into a formula and expect it to work, case in point http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Pages/2012_Roswell_NM_BMG.aspx You people are dense, and Yuri just wants to sell his product. Peace out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49Kw0ZafG4c vid quality is bad but this from UPT

Interesting that more weight didn't always help, guess it could result in more speed and thus more lift. A little surprising. I find this very hard to believe, though concede it might be possible. A queen mattress is 33.33sqft, he would have to be well over 6' tall and have an enormous tail to boot. It is also not a simple measurement outside of CAD because of how dynamic the shape is. What was the suit and about how tall was the jumper?

No no no... Maximum glide isn't necessarily a completely flat or extended suit because the added drag can impede forward speed or change in camber cause boundary layer separation from having too much AoA. Yes some of the newer varieties are being built to be fully extended and flat most of the time and may get max glide in a very flat position but that is far from a cosmopolitan trait. And do you have data for glide coupled with quantitative data on body position and wing shape, dihedral, and dimension? No, no you don't. And on top of all of that wingsuits often cycle in and out of equilibrium glide and almost certainly rely on form drag (maybe a lot) to reduce decent rather than producing lift alone. Not to mention lift (more like inertial redirection) from producing a large pressure wave rather than "aerodynamic lift," I don't know what the technical term for that is. I would say "bow shock" but that is supersonic talk. Could it simply be massive drag? You're trying to apply theories developed for fixed wing, constant velocity, and highly streamlined aerodynamics (which do work to a limited degree), wingsuits are none of those (sometimes constant velocity but rarely). You also have no data on the wing shape, it would be like taking flight data from an airliner and not knowing what the flaps or slats were set at (or that they even had flaps or slats) and trying to infer it's flight envelope. If you really quantified a wingsuit's performance with all of its variable geometry you would end up with dozens of curves that would have to be compiled to produce something useable. Yes, what you are trying to do is possible, but you are making way too many assumptions and are severely underestimating the complexity of the data needing to be collected. You aren't producing anything more comprehensive than what someone with a FlySight could tell you after a few jumps and very little data analysis.

There is so much wrong with that, "I can't even..." Lets just say, "extrapolating beyond the bounds for your data," it will work in some cases but not all, or even "many." #neither of these is a ridged wing glider, and a WS falls completely out of this analysis because a complete change occurs in drag, span, chord, camber, airfoil, angle of attack, and planform to attain each of those data points, and the same data point can be reached by several combinations of each. For all the XRW hopefuls out there, the window is

For non-load bearing stuff like that 3 back stitches should be fine to keep it from unraveling, you could probably get away with just burning the ends and no back stitch, damage to the velcro is probably inconsequential. Load bearing stuff is above my experience level.

Yeah, that is some sloppy work, find a new rigger. As for the needle damaging the kill line, not likely, even if it were to break then the PC just won't collapse after deployment, so it still does the important part. (Bar tacks on canopy suspension lines put more than 20 holes through the line with little reduction in strength, the needle ideally passes between braids rather than breaking threads.) If you can identify the stitches that are going through it or pinching it you can get a seam ripper at WalMart (like $2) and pick them out, just burn the threads and keep an eye on them unraveling in the future. If threads are actually going through the line the slack you are pulling is badly disrupting the braid and will cause damage over time. If it is pinched then it could burn the bridal and/or line from friction during deployments. So you need to free the line either way.

Apples and oranges. They are fundamentally different in how they function, you already pointed out a few of those differences. Wingsuit span, chord, camber, airfoil, angle of attack, and planform can all substantially change depending on body position (and be different between the arm and leg wings). In short, it is a much more dynamic surface(s). When it comes to wing loading, which isn't a really good way to look at it anyway, there is much more variation between jumpers. Take a hypothetical perfect square 6' by 6' person, bigger than any wingsuit on the market, 36 sqft. A 150lb jumper would load it at ~4.2:1, a 250lb jumper ~7:1. As you can see there is an incredible difference. The variation is even greater because even the biggest wingsuits are actually a good bit smaller than that in surface area (how much I don't know but I would guess 1/2 to 2/3). To add to the complexity, someone who is say 5'6" has a smaller surface area than someone who is 6' jumping the same model suit (because they are scaled to fit as you mentioned). So the answer is a performance "window" rather than any sort of area comparison. And different WS pilots can get different performance out of the same model suit based on height, weight, and skill. But put "x" amount of weight under a certain canopy and in straight and level flight the only difference is going to be the drag of the pilot (not insignificant but not comparable to the variation in WSs). So say that a 6' 150lb wingsuiter can XRW with "Z" wingsuit; a 5'6" 200lb wingsuiter with the same model suit might not be able to, regardless of their ability/skill (or maybe they can, which invalidates a WL comparison). Then there is the whole tail vs. arm wing relationship with wingsuits that doesn't apply to canopies. Though I'm sure you could make some arbitrary comparison by averaging suits that don't XRW and those that do and make the statement "you need "x" sqft of wingsuit per "y" sqft of canopy, but such a correlation doesn't tell you anything meaningful other than "you need a big-ish suit to XRW." Wing loading is a somewhat useful tool (though limited) in evaluating a canopy's performance but not so much for wingsuits, too many other variables. And for what it is worth, canopy manufacturers measure size differently. A few examples are projected size (think the size of the wing's shadow), inflated size (which is smaller than it is laid out flat), and the literal amount of top skin fabric. Who uses what I don't know, but suffice it to say, a VK and a Petra that are the same size won't be made out of exactly the same amount of fabric. There is also some rounding of actual numbers that occurs to conform to industry standards. (One rumor I've heard (and cannot substantiate) is that some "high 90s" are actually over 100 sqft but "90-something" makes swooper's dicks harder.)

This is patently not true, personal experience and x-rays confirming dislocation, and other jumpers I've talked to who have had dislocations in freefall. Not everyone is built the same and it isn't always painful. This is true, tape is a gimmick, multiple studies have shown it is basically worthless in almost all situations. #placebo effect

A lot of the older guys and instructors are kinda of the "you'll figure it out" mindset so try not to take it too hard on em, just explain you'd like something more conservative. This very by the book, very conservative, take it one step at a time mentality is kind of new to the skydiving community. I've had a number of S&TAs and reformed old time jumpers tell me "I can't believe what we did 15-20 years ago, it was crazy, but at the time it was normal."

The video I was looking for I couldn't find (it was outside video) but this is basically the same thing from the jumper's perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASW8c1AlVD8#t=56 Deployment is at 35 sec. #dontWSaCrossbracedCanopy #getbetterseperation

I had a similar problem and chop because of jumping a canopy severely out of trim (inspection revealed outer lines about 6" too short and inners 3-4" too short (~600 jumps on original lines). The result was it very much liked to stay in line twists once in them. I tried kicking out and fought it for about a minute, video verified, (from ~3.8k to 3k). My back started hurting from kicking so much and I was headed down wind so I decided to chop a little above my decision altitude of 3k because my effectiveness in fighting it was diminishing and the situation for landing was getting worse. You are NOT OBLIGATED to fight something to decision altitude if you know it is a losing battle, as previously mentioned, it is a bare MINIMUM. For what it is worth, On all WS jumps I pull at 4k (I have over 300 now, so it's not just beginner conservatism), I'm usually fully inflated and flying by 3.8-3.5k. My "soft" decision altitude is 3k, basically unless I have a really good reason to keep it going beyond that I won't (for all practical purposes this is my decision altitude), my absolute hard decision altitude is 2k, no matter what, handles are going to get pulled at 2k. I have audible warnings for both 3K and 2K. As mentioned before, chopping too high is better than too low. There is a delicate balance between riding something too long and being "chop happy" and cutting something you shouldn't. But ultimately you have to trust your reserve and a chop when you didn't have to is better than not chopping when you should have. I remember thinking about this on my low speed line twist chop, "ok, you might be able to get out of this, but your landing options will be poor and you won't have much altitude and you'll be very tired from fighting it so much, and if you can't get out you will have a very bad landing in a semi-urban area and the chance of getting seriously hurt is high, if you chop, there is a 99.99% chance your reserve will function properly and you will be completely fine and land in the main landing area." I went with the chop, landed at the DZ and was able to recover my gear. It is a game of probability. Your decision was an appropriate one, if you saw the problem getting worse and not better then the only decision is to chop, is doesn't matter what your altitude is or if you "might" have been able to get out, because you also "might not" have. The only chops I've ever seen that I would criticize were low experience jumper (sub 100 jumps) that chopped a long snivel at like 4k. For their experience level though it could be appropriate because they were experiencing a problem they couldn't fix and had no experience with (i.e. they didn't know it was probably just a long snivel). For an experienced jumper it might be a sign of panic. If you processed the information and decided a chop was the best course of action, then you almost certainly made the right decision. If you panicked and chopped because you didn't know what else to do, that could be a problem and suggest you need more experience and should be pulling higher etc (but from your description it doesn't sound like that is what happened). P.S. +1 for the SkyHook. Makes a spinning WS malfunction a much better chop because it is so fast that you don't really have time to go head down or spin the reserve up too much. (I've heard of several cases first hand where people have been spinning hard (swoopers to 170 size canopies) and a SkyHook deployed them parallel to the ground with 1 or 0 line twists. I think there is a good real life chop vid on UPT's website where a wingsuiter was spinning hard and chopped, the SkyHook had the reserve out so fast there were no line twists. My low speed chop was also a SkyHook and I started to fall backwards but the reserve was already out and the snivel kept me from rotating more than 30 degrees back. A recent photo I saw of a very experienced jumper on an Aura2 with a normal RSL had him head down for the snivel with reserve lines on either side of his head, scary s**t. He was looking at his feet and the sniveling reserve at the same time

Same deal, but I have 8 screws PT and make your leg stronger than it was before. My only lingering problem is the ankle isn't as flexible as it use to be, but it doesn't really cause me any trouble (also I didn't jump for 6 months, I wanted to be able to run comfortably before I jumped again). Learn to PLF really good, like running out of the bed of a truck or off a picnic table. I don't get this boot/brace myth, people with ski boots just break their legs above the boot line and if your are snapping a 1" piece of protein and calcium use to being loaded with hundreds of pounds (close to 1000 when you run), a little leather or plastic isn't going to absorb that energy. Sprained ankles yes, broken bones, not a chance. And always be ready to PLF no madder how good your landing looks. I broke mine over 300 jumps ago and I'm still ready to PLF on every one since. As for canopy stuff, you should be on a 300. Get videos of your landings, jump often and multiple times a day. Get coaching when you can. It'll come, just takes time, and you should be on a ultra forgiving canopy through your A. 230 is a little aggressive and the silhouette flares like s**t (personal experience with a brand new one), big guys like you and me hit the ground a lot harder than the 150lb fellas at the same wing loading. You are probably 250 out the door, just btw.

It is a valid observation. We have always tried to be clear that we are a "rental" company with the goal of keeping people flying while they decide on what suit they would like to purchase for the long term. We also avoid anything larger than an S-Bird because we feel a lot of time should be invested in an advanced suit before going to expert and most people will need to own that advanced suit to get the experience. So, we have just a few S-Birds for those waiting for their advanced suit to be made or that just have commitment issues. A "demo" company has to come at the problem from a different direction and really has to stay on top of all the latest designs. However, we are seeing and hearing the demand for a demo solution and are looking into options to help out. We are always happy to listen and I can be contacted here, via email or on our FB page. Simon Keep doing what you are doing. You are indispensable for people getting their first 10-20 WS jumps (myself included). I made my first 15 or so on a Wicked T-Bird. Thx btw The demo thing is up to each manufacturer, and people demo-ing from you to purchase from Tony would make for a weird relationship and unnecessary middleman-ness.

This is where Squirrel have completely changed the game. A product information page that is up as soon as a suit is available for purchase with detailed photos, a full list of features and a description of flight characteristics, intended purpose, strengths and weaknesses that is unprecedented. S-Fly seem to have twigged to how important this is and are making a good effort but so far Tony and Phoenix don't seem to think it's important for a consumer to know that much about what their wingsuits do apart from 'this one's big,' 'this one's fast' or 'this one backflies' and they're wrong. Tony has undoubtedly the biggest, fastest starting suit out there (which a few years ago would have been enough to shift tons of them) but it'll be killed in sales by the A2 because that's the one you can read about. The PF Sukhoi seen up close is an unrivalled display of perfectionism with a host of features and design tweaks aimed at optimising every single part of the suit but which you would never see from a photo of the whole suit and which I wager will never be highlighted on the PF site if or when the product page is ever put up there. So will people buy that or the C2 with its 15 itemised features in addition to detailed description? Guys - you have the suits, you've done the work - just f*ing tell us about them! (OT rant over ) Very true, years ago there weren't many choices, so big and/or fast were all you needed to know and the biggest and fastest were undisputed, but now there are several suits that all compete for exactly the same role and who is the biggest or fastest probably has more to do with the pilot than the suit. Squirrel has indeed changed the game, you see and hear first hand descriptions from professional pilots and get a sense of what it feels like to fly the suit. Based on my personal experience with the C2, their descriptions are exceedingly accurate. They have avoided overhyping their product and losing all credibility.

The following is purely my personal cynical opinion based on first hand experience and countless observations. Concerning all the "other" Tony Suits not mentioned. Because you asked and because it frustrates the hell out of me... Worth mentioning because it adds significantly to the confusion is that Tony vomits out models with unprecedented frequency and lack of market use before vomiting out yet another, some of which seem to compete with each other, and has a woefully inadequate website or description of what is even in production anymore (e.g. are scorpions still even made? Don't tell me yes because the order form is up because if that is the case I can still order a Nebula). The current website is a mashup of new stuff and bits and pieces that haven't changed in years. (All the result of a crazy old man with an enormous ego running the show). Yes they make some good suits, but are 4 variations on the R-Bird all in production at the same time really necessary (particularly when the RPro has very little in common with the original)? I think not. He is just throwing stuff against the proverbial wall to see what sticks, and yes, every now an then there is a winner. There are RPros, R2B2s, R2s, Fogheads, etc etc ad nauseam. Every now and then I see something for sale second hand that was never advertised and I've never heard of, recently a "T/R-Bird." So when it comes to Tony, you have to use a bit more discretion and find more info to understand what each model actually is, what is available, and what is actually in wide circulation or what was a very limited production/prototype released to the public. I wager Tony may have more models available and in production at this time than all other manufacturers combined, that is not a compliment.

Anything mentioned will be better than your R-Bird (It use to be "intermediate" but now is kinda "beginner+.") If you don't have to fight for lift and aren't flying with big suits the Havok Carve, Funk, and Swurve are all direct competitors with each other (different manufacturers, basically the same product). However unless you are super tall and thin XRW is out of the question. If you need more lift and want the capacity to fly with big suits while still being able to do some acro and back flying, get the RPro or Freak, more or less direct competitors. (Ghost Hunter maybe, still too new to know) XRW is possible but will require a great deal of skill unless you are again, super tall and thin. If you are looking for more XRW friendly and willing to sacrifice acro/back flying, the Venom Power, Xs, Apaches, and Rebels come into play. If you want raw speed Jedis and anything with "race" in the name. Any big suit can be shut down and flown with any small suit, even trackers, it just depends on the skill of the pilot, obviously the bigger the suit the more skill it requires.